Diabetes, hyperglycemia, and ATN blood biomarkers in Hispanic/Latino populations: SOL‐INCA study

INTRODUCTION: Research studying associations between plasma amyloid-tau-neurodegeneration (ATN) biomarkers and vascular factors, such as diabetes, is limited. We sought to examine associations between diabetes status and plasma ATN biomarkers in diverse Hispanic/Latino individuals. METHODS: We used data from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos and the Study of Latinos-Investigation of Neurocognitive Aging ancillary studies. Our exposures included diabetes status and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) percentage. Outcomes included amyloid beta (Aβ) 42/40 ratio, phosphorylated tau 181 (p-tau181), neurofilament light chain (NfL), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). RESULTS: The final analytic sample was N = 6264. Diabetes, but not prediabetes, was associated with higher NfL and p-tau181 and lower Aβ42/40 ratio. Elevated HbA1c percentage was associated with higher NfL, p-tau181, and GFAP and lower Aβ42/40. DISCUSSION: Diabetes was associated with plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease pathology and non-specific neurodegeneration. Reducing diabetes prevalence could be beneficial for lowering dementia risk in this population.